My dog may not survive my exercise

On an up note, I went out for a walk/run again today. Tuesday I went twice, so I gave myself a break yesterday.

I have this Maltese named Casey who is freakin' adorable. I also have a larger, Golden-mix named Amber. Amber is fine, but Casey could stand to lose a couple pounds (yes, the photo is of them).

Anyway, I've been taking them on these walks, and I've been doing all I can to incorporate some schleppy running in there. Okay, in all fairness, it's not REALLY running, but it loosely resembles it. Think Night of the Living Dead but in 1.5x speed. Not pretty. Kinda like how my friend and I try to hit a ball back and forth with a racket and say it loosely resembles tennis in some form or fashion. Anyway, I digress.

Poor Casey does okay in the beginning, and actually gets up to a little puppy gallop -- but always behind me because, let's face it, his legs are like three inches long. But by the end of our hour, he's heaving and barely trotting, and I notice there is no slack in the leash anymore. I think I actually saw skid marks on the trail due to my pulling him. Slacker.

So today I played the nice mommy and carried him some of the way, but only for the walking part. I don't think his little body could handle the jostling by being held while I do my schleppy run. Then again, he wasn't looking so great in his little drag-run either.

He gets home, gulps down some water, comes over near the couch, and literally collapses on the hardwood floor, all four legs splayed out like he's playing "dead rigor mortis doggie," except that he's panting frantically. Freakin' hilarious!

Well, at least ONE of us is apparently benefitting from it. If I don't kill him first, that is.